Women Who Made Amanda Seyfried Feel Less Alone

As an actress, Amanda Seyfried regularly inhabits the lives of others, real and imagined. As a reader, too, Seyfried gravitates toward works in which writers take readers “deep inside of their lives, for better, or for worse.” She recently spoke with us about a few titles that raise questions about what it means to be a good daughter, wife, and mother—and that have made her feel less alone. Her comments have been edited and condensed.

My Good Bright Wolf

by Sarah Moss

In the book, Moss is a complete outsider within her family from Day One and, in writing about them, she makes the striking decision to refer to them by different nicknames: her father is the Owl, her mother is Jumbly Girl, and her brother is the Angel Child. Moss’s battle was emotional as well as physical, manifesting in an eating disorder. Her mother was also fighting demons, and she didn’t seem to have the tools to address her own struggles, let alone her daughter’s. Moss was made to feel crazy as a result, and that became very lonely for her. It’s heartbreaking.

At the same time, though, her descriptions of sickness and life are beautiful. They illustrate the way that, as much as we might try to change, there are certain things about ourselves that we’ll probably keep knocking into. I don’t think that Moss, or any of the other authors here, have quite come through the end of their journeys—I guess that would be impossible—but they seem to write about their lives with remarkable clarity.

Devotion

by Dani Shapiro

This memoir is centered on a lack of peace, specifically in the face of Shapiro’s relationship to her parents and to her young son. Her father died suddenly and her son was born with a serious illness, so she’s contending with an overarching sense of fear and anxiety. At odds with herself and at odds with the world, Shapiro searches for peace through religion. She grew up in a very Jewish household, but finds solace in Buddhism.

I commend the way she goes about trying to find meaning; the path she’s on emphasizes love and kindness, and she’s patient with herself in a way that I found inspiring. Her search for meaning also extends through her writing, which is both unapologetic and selfless—selfless in that she’s sharing her search with the world.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful

by Maggie Smith

Smith, who’s a poet, details her struggles with the end of her marriage. You’re with her throughout the process: when she finds a postcard from another woman addressed to her husband, when he initiates a divorce, when they go to couples counselling (because there’s a big part of Smith that wants to fix the relationship), when she has a difficult conversation with her kids about the situation, and when she finally decides to prioritize her happiness. There’s a specific passage in the book that really stands out:

One night, lying next to me in bed, my husband told me I was famous. He said it quietly in the dark. In his inflection, I heard sadness. I heard you’re not the same anymore, you’re gone somehow. “I’m not famous,” I said. “I just wrote a famous poem.” It wasn’t the same thing. I said it as a kind of apology, as reassurance, because I felt like I’d been accused of something.

The idea that one person’s success somehow detracts from another’s, especially within a family or marriage, is mind-blowing. It seems like Smith is really taking something away from this interaction, and there are revelatory moments like this in all of these books. I love how all of the writers are constantly evolving, both because they have to and because they want to.

All Fours

by Miranda July

Yes, this is a work of fiction—but how fictitious is it? It’s about a woman, a writer, who leaves her husband and child at home so that she can drive across the country. But she makes it only twenty or so miles, which she lies to her family about. The character meets a younger guy, Davey, and puts stakes down in a small town. Davey actually has a wife, and the narrator becomes intertwined with both of them. She follows her every impulse, doing things that you’re “not allowed to do,” and it’s total madness.

This novel captured the Zeitgeist, and I think it will change a lot of people’s marriages and their relationships with themselves. It gives you permission to tap into the wackiest part of yourself, and for me it was a relief to know that my impulses don’t veer quite in the direction of the protagonist’s. Even if they did, the story encourages us to talk about them, fostering a true intimacy that is almost impossible to find.